Liquid crystal displays (LCDs) are devices that display characters and images utilizing electro-optical characteristics of liquid crystal molecules, and they have been used widely in mobile phones, notebook computers, liquid crystal televisions, etc. In a LCD, a liquid crystal panel having a polarizing plate arranged on each side of a liquid crystal cell generally is used. For example, in a normally black type LCD, a black display can be obtained when no voltage is applied thereto (see Patent Document 1, for example). An example of the configuration of a conventional liquid crystal panel is shown in the schematic sectional view of FIG. 4. As shown in FIG. 4, polarizing plates 17 are arranged on both sides of a liquid crystal cell 13 with a retardation layer 18 intervening between the liquid crystal cell 13 and each of the polarizing plates. An example of the configuration of the liquid crystal cell is shown in the schematic sectional view of FIG. 5. As shown in FIG. 5, the liquid crystal cell 13 is configured so that spacers 132 are arranged between a pair of substrates 131, and a liquid crystal layer 133 is held in a space that is formed between the pair of substrates 131 by the spacers 132. Although not shown in the drawing, one of the substrates is provided with a switching element (e.g., TFT) for controlling electro-optical characteristics of the liquid crystal, a scanning line for supplying gate signals to the switching element, and a signal line for supplying source signals to the switching element. The retardation layer is also called as the “birefringence layer” or “optical compensation layer”. The retardation layer is used for optical compensation such as, for example, improvement of viewing angle characteristics, color shift, and the contrast of a liquid crystal display. As shown in FIG. 4, in the conventional liquid crystal panel, the retardation layers are arranged on both the visible side (the upper side in the drawing) and the backlight side (the lower side in the drawing) (Patent Document 2).
On the other hand, accompanying the increase in resolution and performance enhancement of liquid crystal displays in recent years, uniformity in a display screen and improvement in display quality have been required. More specifically, there has been a demand for a liquid crystal panel capable of providing a neutral display that is free from coloring in every direction. However, with conventional liquid crystal panels, it is difficult to provide a neutral display that is free from coloring in every direction.
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent No. 3648240
[Patent Document 2] JP 11 (1999)-95208 A